An Ode to Our Humanity in the Throes of a Crisis
Wait…don’t wait for another day to arise
Arise!…let this time not decide who you can be!
You decide what time you find your humanity.
Humanity needs those not falling apart…
Apart is how we stay, but must we die this way?
Now we all stand tall or fall together…
We knew death follows every birth.
How did those who had so much, then forget?
It matters not if you or I, if we are
remembered…the dead know not
that they are remembered, only we
…the living, <but who can tell us apart>
…for a few days or weeks or centuries
will know who harmed us, who did us
wrong, who made us strong…when did
we ever hear Attila or Genghis weep…
did Mao or Hitler lose sleep over how
you or I thought of them when they
were gone…did Buddha or Jesus believe
a time would come when we would stand
apart…a part of the globe falling apart…
who has not seen this crisis coming?
It was thus since the beginning of time,
Nothing has changed…
ㅤ ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤEverything has changed!
Who will hold to the fire the feet
which have walked in the diamond
studded flesh of their brothers…
sisters with no diamonds to their names
….not even a morsel of food to eat…
or be accused of choosing penury…
We cannot today bring to justice
…the justice keepers on the run, undone
eventually by those they have kept down…
…down the rabbit hole they’ll go…
fast or slow, nobody knows…
I know today I must hold out a hand
…asking for help or watching it land…
on whose need for help is greater than…
mine…I may be fine by some wish
divine…or I may die, a day or week
or year sooner, what will I leave behind?
Not diamonds and rust, just that…
perchance I was kind…maybe not blind
to the pain around me, surround me
as it did…did not find me ground
…down to diamonds and dust. But first…
I have to find my humanity…before this
virus takes my guts.
